I'm a Runner: Scott Bakula

The Golden Globe-winning actor hopes to run the Boston Marathon in April.

Did you like that experience? Do you want to do it again?Yeah, I'm going to do it again. I was actually thinking of doing it this year, and now I'm going to see what happens. That's the interesting thing about marathons that people don't understand—you're not automatically lined up to do one after another, depending on your body and what happens during life. But I want to do another one soon, and I want to get to New York and I want to do Boston. Those are two on my list.

You must have enjoyed it to want to do it again. Did you hit the wall?I loved it. My running buddy in the L.A. Marathon ended up having a problem. We were having a great day, but he took a chance coming in because he wasn't well. He'd had some bronchitis. He was hurting. He hit it about mile 17. We walked a lot, and still ended up in 4:10.

So you stuck with him—that's a good friend.Yep. Well, he had kids waiting at the finish line. I just didn't see how I could come through the finish line without him. "Yeah, I left your dad; he's back there somewhere. He's in a lot of trouble." How do you say that to a kid? And he had been my running buddy in the San Diego Marathon, too.

Do you have local races you do every year?The only one I've been doing—there's a cancer run we do every year as a family in Calabasas. That's a 5-K. I take my little kids with me on that. One year we ran with one of our friends in a wheelchair.

So when you're filming, are you on set for 12 hours a day? Do you get breaks?Every day is different. This week, we didn't work at all. I'm going to work 12, 14 hours today or tomorrow.

Why is that?Every once in awhile, you've got a scene where the requirements are stunts, 200 extras—those things slow you down. But this shoot has been going unbelievably great. It's just the three of us, and we just whip through stuff.

So can you run in the afternoon?No, when you're shooting, you just grab stuff when you can. You hit Saturday and Sunday, and look at the week. Like this morning, I thought I would get a run in, but I got one in yesterday. I'm also doing weights, and I'm doing other stuff, too.

Like what?I do a stepper. It's kind of my new favorite thing to do. It's a machine where you're climbing stairs. The technique of climbing the stairs is where it's really at. I'm in this whole new way of working out, which is all about your posterior stuff, because we all let the posterior go as we get older. In the world we're living in, we're all front-loaded, especially L.A. We're driving, we're at the desk, we're on the computer, we're on the phone—almost exclusively everything we do is front-loaded. When you get older and your posture starts to go, you're not working out your back muscles and the backs of your legs. And the typical thing at the gym, everyone works out the muscles they can see. You've got to work harder to work the back out. The stepper, when you do it correctly, if you're standing up straight and not hanging on the handles, and you're pushing through your heels and not your toes, you're going to start working out a different way. So that happens on the off days.

Do you have a trainer?I do. I have a great guy I've been training with for years. He designs high-end gyms for a living; his name is Mark Harigian. He got out of the training business years ago, although he works with a lot of Olympic athletes in San Diego.

Do you follow track and field?I do to a certain extent, not religiously. During the Olympics, I try to watch the running. My kids are good athletes and runners. They run in a bunch of sports.

So do you have any favorite professional athletes?It's hard not to like this (Usain) Bolt. I'm just kind of in shock about him, as I think the whole world is. Because he's also a new physique for these guys. Our guys are wonderful. This guy is like so out of the norm; it's kind of bizarre. It seems like he's having so much fun; it seems genuine.

Do you still watch soccer?Oh, yeah. We're crazy about it in this house. I coached for a bunch of years, then about two years ago, my son said, "Dad, time for someone else to coach now." I got over it.

Do you think about your roles while you're running?Running for me has always been a great place to get away. It's a great stress reliever for me. It's great if I need to be working on something in my mind, whether it's things I need to be memorizing or thinking about or I have some presentation coming up. Anything like that, it's a great place to go. There's no cell phone, there's no way for anyone to get in contact with me, and I really, really like that. We don't have enough of that in our world anymore. Whether I'm out doing the mountains and I've got the dogs with me, or if I'm by myself, it's a great way to shut out our crazy world and business for an hour or whatever. That's probably my favorite thing about it.